Funny I think you'd have a hard time finding a more expensive bike than the ones they use in the Tour De France and I seem to recall a few hills in that race. Track bikes on the other hand have one gear and are not nearly as expensive. Granted, weight or the goal of reducing it is the basis for cost, your comment about lack of gears and being intended for flat ground is quite wrong. Modern road bikes have 20-30 gears to chooses from.

Thunderbird, Firefox, Word, VMware VI Client, nLite and I'm guessing Windows Update jumps in here and there.

Sounds fine if all my apps run in a single browser. Just another reason not to buy MS apps.

When we were looking for rings the jeweler showed me his and he had it made out of Tungsten. He mentioned that it was one of the hardest materials next to diamonds. It was heavy too! I was thinking Titanium as well but he said it would scratch fairly easily and couldn't be polished like Gold or Silver. Is this the case as you have found it to be? I would dig a Ti band as I'm a serious mnt. bike racer. P.S. a nice Ti frame can run as much as $5000.00 or more!